


heartbeats all around

by Ironinkpen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Auburn just kinda does things and they don't really make sense but hey, Eshe is a genius but she's too snarky to be THAT smart, Gen, maybe an original thing eventually???, oooooh the world may never know, sarcasm as a poor coping mechanism, uh: references to death and vague allusions to depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironinkpen/pseuds/Ironinkpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Auburn throws Eshe off a cliff and the two have a nice chat about feelings.</p><p>“Can we please stop with the metaphysical Q and A?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartbeats all around

**Author's Note:**

> oRiGINal chArACters?????????

When Eshe finally regains feeling in her legs and gets her stomach to stop trying to regurgitate itself, she stumbles to her feet to confront her would-be killer. The effect of this confrontation is a bit ruined by the fact that she’s still sweaty and pale and has a tendency towards falling back on sarcasm to cope with situations instead of actual concrete accusations. Rather than coming across as livid, she comes off more as unamused when she wheezes, “You just tried to _kill_ me.”

“Observant.” Auburn smiles at her like she isn’t homicidal. “Now, how did that make you feel?”

If Eshe weren’t against impossible physical odds, she would have strangled the girl by now. But she is and she can’t.

“You’re asking about my feelings.” It’s not a question.

“Mhm.”

“Are you… Do you know how many charges I could get on you, like, right now?

She hums like she’s not all that concerned. “What was your first thought when you were falling?”

“That on top of being an idiot, you’re also a murderer.”

Auburn rolls her eyes. “Wrong. What was your real first thought?”

“Why does this matter?”

“Just answer the question and you’ll find out!” Eshe doesn’t really know if she should answer any questions posed by a person who literally just threw her off a cliff, but since she’s not too keen on being thrown off another one, she decides to play it safe.

“That I was going to die?” She’s still shaking a bit, honestly. “That I didn’t want to?”

Auburn smiles at her. “There we go. Now, why?”

“Why _what?_ ”

“Why didn’t you want to die?” She asks again patiently. “Didn’t you say life was boring? That there was no point to it?”

Eshe squints at her. “That’s not an invitation to push people off cliffs, you know.”

“Please answer the question.” The playfulness slips out of her voice and is replaced with a stilling tranquility. The doctor breathes out noisily and makes like she isn’t totally intimidated.

“I didn’t want to die, obviously. No one asks to die.”

Auburn crosses her arms and turns away from her, looking out at the ocean. “You said life was boring.”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Then, why did you want to live? Why is it that after twenty years of not caring, you suddenly got the urge to live?”

“For the _love_ of- It was an animalistic instinct! A reaction towards fear! That’s all!”

“Exactly!” Auburn suddenly bursts cheerfully, making Eshe jump and startle a nearby crab. “An instinct, a reaction!”

Eshe, for all her intelligence, is no psychologist. She doesn’t know what Auburn’s thinking or what she’s getting at. All that she knows is that she’s scared out of her mind, and would presently like to go home- something she didn’t imagine she’d ever think.

She takes futile baby steps backwards, all too aware that if Auburn really wanted to, she’d catch up with her in an instant. But, maybe if she managed to slip about 10 feet away before she noticed, she’d have a wide enough margin to call for help-

“Right now your instincts are telling you to run away.”

Eshe pauses in the middle of another tiny step and wonders how she could have picked that up while simultaneously _cursing_ the fact that she picked that up. She stops moving and clenches her fist behind her back- while she doesn’t think Auburn will hit her, she’s ready to punch her if she gets within range. Not that she’ll knock her out, but it may just be surprising enough to win her an advantage.

“And that’s fight or flight.”

“Damn it! Stop doing that!”

Auburn’s eyes are soft with amusement. “You’re too obvious. Your muscles are practically wired. Isn’t it interesting, though? You know your reactions here are pointless,” There is no conceit in her words, only simple fact. “And yet you’re still reacting the way you are. Just like on the cliff. Why?”

“Can we please stop with the metaphysical Q and A?”

Auburn smiles disarmingly, and Eshe is almost lured into the lull. Almost. But, evidently, being thrown off a cliff leads a lasting impression.

“It’s interesting,” She says again, and a faraway twinkle enters her eye. “As you were falling, your mind said it was pointless- that life doesn’t really have meaning- so why did your body react the way it did?”

“I think we already established that I wanted to stay alive.” Eshe says dryly, abandoning her escape for snark. A bad habit, she admits.

“No.” Auburn doesn’t look at her anymore and turns her attention to the ocean instead. “You weren’t _living_ before.”

A weight drops into the air between them and the only sound for a while is that of the waves licking at the shore. Eshe feels the words creep up on her and settle in her bones, sticking onto them like a cumbersome wallpaper. Any breath she would have used to defend herself is stolen by the simplicity of the statement. For the first time since meeting her, Eshe is very, fully aware of Auburn’s own intelligence, and the depth of it is absolutely terrifying.

She looks at Auburn then and finds a woman who knows people. Knows them in a way others can’t begin to comprehend- she keeps her ear to their hearts and reads their faces like tabbed books and just _knows_. Eshe thinks that maybe she’s scared not because of her free-fall- Auburn’s actions thus far could lead even the dimmest of people to conclude that she was never going to let her die- but because she’s afraid of what’s being heard and read and known.

Quietly, Auburn says, “Humans are strange and really complicated. They want adventure, love, happiness- and they want it all to fall into their laps. But, if it does and they don’t struggle for anything, what’s the point in having it? Those things are only valued so much because they’re hard to get. If they were easy to get, they wouldn’t be nearly as precious.” She’s no longer being spoken to. There’s a strange haze in the girl’s expression that makes it seem like she’s talking to a ghost. “That’s when life gets boring. When you sit around and wait and pretend you’ve seen the whole world from your window. That’s when you stop being a person and start being just a body.”

There’s a lengthy, listless pause that suggests she won’t be speaking again. But, when the wind picks up and blows fine sand across the beach like moon dust, she does.

“That body is always waiting for you to want to live again. Its instinct is to rebel against death with every cell. When you’re faced with death, it’s like everything in you just wakes up. Your mind may have given up on life, but in that second your body reminds you that you want to live. It _forces_ you to remember to live. To remember what life feels like and why you want it.”

What Auburn is currently talking about is adrenaline, but Eshe doesn’t move to correct her. The peace and odd, faint loneliness in Auburn’s words make her stop her mouth before she can.

They stand there for a while longer without saying anything and Eshe becomes very conscious of the beating of her heart and of the wiggling of her toes and of the way her ribs seem to pop whenever she takes a deep breath. She stands there and practically _feels_ herself decomposing.

For the first time, a type of urgency tingles in the pit of her stomach and stirs in her heart.

“Come on.” She turns away from her staring and swallows the shakiness in her breath. “I’m hungry and I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up anymore. You’re paying, though- consider it hush money.”

Auburn falls into step behind her and barks that cheerful, charming laugh. “Put it on Joen’s tab, then. We’ll eat enough for kings.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!! If anyone wants to see more of these two, I'd love to hear it!


End file.
